The present invention relates to an image diagnosis supporting device, which extracts a shadow that serves as a focus candidate (a possibly diseased portion) from a medical image by computerized image processing and displays the extracted shadow as is a focus candidate so that it can be identified.
A computerized image diagnosis supporting device analyzes shadows in a medical image by using a computer, and displays a medical image containing a focus candidate shadow selected from the shadows, thereby presenting such medical image to a doctor who has been requested to make a diagnosis. The term “medical image” used herein covers photographic images photographed with medical image diagnosis devices, such as CT devices, MRI devices and ultrasonic diagnosis devices, as well as difference images between past images and current images and the like. As to the method of selecting a focus candidate, several examples associated with medical images of lung areas have been reported in meetings and the like. Among the reports, there is a method of discriminating between a blood vessel shadow having an elongated shape and a cancer shadow having a shape close to that of a circle in a medical image of a lung area, for example, a “Quoit Filter” (refer to Journal of Computer Aided Diagnosis of Medical Images, Vol. 9, Page 21, November 1999). During a diagnosis of a medical image of a lung area, since the medical image contains not only a shadow of a cancer candidate, but also shadows such as blood vessels, cross sections of blood vessels and cross sections of bronchi, and various shadows have various sizes and shapes, it is desirable that only the shadow of the cancer candidate be extracted from the other shadows and be presented to the doctor.
However, the above-described image diagnosis supporting device is difficult to use, because a lot of time-consuming work is required to adjust the parameters for specifying the sizes and shapes of various shadows.
An object of this invention is to provide an image diagnosis supporting device that is capable of reducing the computing time of a computer by handling shadows of different sizes and shapes in an integrated manner when a decision as to whether a shadow is a focus candidate of a medical image is to be automatically made by the use of the computer.
Another object of this invention is to provide an image diagnosis supporting device that is capable of easily and instantaneously displaying a shadow which seems to be an extracted focus candidate.